The Limbreth Gate

The Limbreth Gate

Book Three of the Windsingers Series

Robin Hobb

Contents

Cover

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

ONE

A slender red fissure appeared in the wall, dividing the stone like a snake cutting through water. The Windsinger had no breath to give the cry of relief she felt. Instead she gathered her strength again, and let it flow from her. The stony goddesses and bearded warriors in bas relief on the wall stared past her unseeing. The uncertain light of her fluttering lamp touched their high cheekbones and rounded arms, but left their eyes in darkness. Yoleth paid no heed to them. They had stalked the walls of Jojorum long before she was born, and would still be slowly weathering away long after she was gone. The creeping fissure split the smiling lips and smooth brow of a minor deity.

The city was still; Yoleth had lulled the wind to silence, and the crowing of cocks and the stirrings of market stall farmers were still hours away. The soft dust of the city streets lay as fine as talc over the ancient paving stones. In all the predawn city, only Yoleth was awake and striving.

A fine haze of sweat misted her lightly scaled skin. It damped the tall blue cowl that framed her narrow face, sticking it to her brow and the back of her neck. Her eyes, grey streaked with white, narrowed with the intensity of her effort. Her arms were folded before her, slender hands clasping one another’s wrists within the voluminous sleeves of the blue gown that proclaimed her a Windsinger of rank. Her body was still but her mind groaned with effort.

She must not waver now. Carefully she blanked her mind again, losing her identity, letting her strength be tapped by the Limbreth on the other side. The seam became a jagged crack. The dark red light that glowed through it was like a fire seen through treetrunks at night. The edges of the opening became regular, forming a tall thin rectangle. Her body steamed beneath her robes; the fine cloth grew heavy with damp. The rectangle stretched wider.

Yoleth struggled to remain apart from it. Curiosity broke and bubbled in her; she longed to peer through the opening Gate. But if the Limbreth were to be successful, she must not divert any of her mind’s power. The Limbreth must control her vision and use her will to see the Gate from this side. She did not know how much longer she could support that need and remain standing. She banished the thought, trying for these moments not to think, not even to be.

The Gate was as wide as a Human now, and taller. But that would not be enough. She heard the hiss of her own breath between her teeth. With an effort that made the edges of the Gate waver, she returned her breathing to its deep regularity. The edges of the Gate firmed. The Limbreth stretched it wider. She felt herself drawn thinner with the effort. There. Surely that was wide enough now. But the Limbreth continued, drawing the sides of the Gate farther and farther apart. Her legs began to tremble, and she could not still them. Her strength was stretched thin as wire.

Slowly she sank to her knees, her robes wilting about her like the petals of a dying flower. Her proud head sagged forward. The Keeper stepped into the Gate, holding it, and Yoleth fell. The lamp beside her guttered, smoked, and went out.

The Keeper filled the Gate and held it. Yoleth’s task was done; strength flowed back into her. She dragged herself to her feet, resuming a Windsinger’s dignity. A trill from her throat brought a tiny breeze that cooled her skin. Withdrawing a small blue handkerchief from her sleeve, she dried her face daintily. She gave a short sigh; a flick of her hand stilled the breeze. ‘It’s done.’

‘Yes,’ the Keeper agreed, his voice like stones falling into a still pool.

Yoleth regarded him with some curiosity. He was a squat and sexless thing, clad in layers of garments so ragged that they effectively concealed the shape of his torso and legs. His arms were lissome and shapely for all their grey color. His hands had three thick fingers that ended in squared-off nails. A shapeless hood hung low over his brow, but concealed no eyes. Two slitlike nostrils flared as he breathed, and his mouth was a puckered seam. But he it was that filled the Gate and held it, his presence and training keeping open the rift between the worlds.

‘I am Yoleth, of the Windsingers,’ she announced formally.

‘I am the Keeper of the Gate, servant of the Limbreth.’ Whatever name he had ever borne had been swallowed by his duty. ‘Where is the one who would go through the Gate?’

‘She has not yet reached Jojorum,’ Yoleth said hastily, surprised by his directness. ‘Her route is not a straight one; bad roads may delay her. But I thought it best to have the Gate ready before she arrived.’

‘Your snare is set, then, but the prey has not yet arrived.’ The Keeper chuckled sonorously. ‘By trickery and by treachery do they come, those who go through my Gate. Is she a fool or a victim of her trust in you?’

‘That is none of your affair,’ Yoleth rebuked him haughtily. ‘My agreement is with your master, and your duty is to honor it.’

‘As I shall. I shall sit within my Gate and wait. When you are ready to use the Gate, you have only to bring your victim here. I will be ready. I have already selected the one from our side that will enter your world to keep the balance.’

Yoleth frowned quickly, the Human lines of it wrinkling strangely the alienized contours of her face. ‘But I understood that you would call her in for me; that I had only to tell you that she was within the city, and you could call her through the Gate.’

The Keeper snorted. ‘Your tales of us must be old indeed. As well ask me to call a particular bird out of a flock in the sky. I can call one through the Gate, yes. But the choosing is not mine when I call one from your side. I can but call, and those unwary ones within the range of my call must answer.’

‘Unwary?’ Yoleth echoed. Her web, so beautifully simple, was tangling to uselessness with his every word.

‘Surely you know what I mean. The ones who have let go the reins of their minds; the drunken, the grieving, the mad, or the extremely weary. Those I can call at random, and do, sometimes, for the sake of balancing the Gate, or to find a new mind to amuse my Master. But I cannot call one of your choosing. You must set your own trap; I can but spring it.’

‘Once sprung, will it hold?’ Yoleth doubted bitterly. ‘This is not the bargain I made. It is not what I thought your master offered. What else will you tell me is different? The Limbreth said that once she was through the Gate, I need trouble about her no longer. Is that true, or is there a string on this as well? What assurances do I have that this Gate of yours will hold her in, or others out?’

‘You have our word on these things,’ the Keeper replied stiffly. ‘I can call the unwary through the Gate. And the Gate is impassable, unless I will otherwise, for I am the Keeper of the Balance and the Matcher of Worlds! The Limbreth, with your aid, can open the Gate. But only a Keeper can reconcile the meeting of two worlds. Their differences alone are enough to seal the Gate against most passage; I am enough to seal it against anything else.’

‘Prove it!’ Yoleth snapped out the words.

The Keeper drew himself up straight. ‘I know not why my master would have doings with those who doubt my words,’ the Keeper grumbled. ‘But if the Limbreth has agreed, who am I to refuse? Wait, then, and watch. Speak no word, I will wastefully spend the one already chosen from our side; I will reach and call for one from yours.’

The Keeper went silent. He stood unmoving within the rectangle of the Gate, his dark bulk limned by the deep reds behind him. Yoleth gazed past him in suspicion. She saw nothing but the red background that framed him, but it was an ever-shifting curtain of reds and umber shadows. Through the Gate, she knew, was the Limbreth world, a place that just touched but did not border the world of the Windsingers. Rumors of it were many, and old tales spoke of it; but what could be truly known of a land that no one returned from? Yoleth leaned forward, peering, but could see only into the Gate, not through it.

The dull thudding behind her of hastening hoofbeats pressed her back against the wall. She flattened herself against the stone hem of a goddess’s robe, looking back, away from the Gate, and was still. The hoofbeats faltered, hesitating, and then a black warhorse cantered round the corner into view. A young Brurjan was high in the saddle, swaying gently with her mount’s movements. She was dressed all in black leather, and the small round shield at her saddle bow carried the device of a yellow wheel in flames. A Rouster by profession. And all Brurjans were fighters by temperament, notoriously disrespectful of all authority. Yoleth eased even closer to the wall.

But the Brurjan made straight for the glowing Gate. The red of it filled her eyes and was reflected in them. It stroked her short dark fur to a crimson sheen. She slid from her saddle to stand before it, swaying slightly as she caught up her mount’s reins. Yoleth smelled the sourness of cheap wine. But when the Brurjan spoke, her voice was clear and steady, though oddly accented.

‘I dreamed me a Gate,’ she intoned. ‘A Gate red as spilled blood, and beyond it a treasure in flickering gems, calling for any bold enough to take them. I dreamed I rode toward it, and woke to find myself standing by my saddled horse. He knew the way, Black did. And I am the one who is bold enough to take.’

‘The Gate is for you, then.’ The Keeper was not at all surprised. ‘Enter slowly. Take your beast if you care to.’

Yoleth watched, silent as a stilled breeze. The Brurjan, with the short swift steps peculiar to her folk, led her horse into the Gate. She slowed suddenly as she entered it, encountering an invisible current. She plowed determinedly on. The red Gate framed them all: the Keeper, the Brurjan and her battlesteed, and, from the other side, a small boy. His pale hair was tousled, his eyes dreaming still. A short pale green garment left his arms and legs bare. His skin was a golden brown. His dream made him smile.

For two breaths all were framed there, limned against the redness. Then the Brurjan and her black horse went on, fading through the Gate, while the boy emerged, stepping suddenly from the redness into the dusky streets of Jojorum. He stumbled as he emerged, as if he had leaned against something, only to find it suddenly gone. As his hands met the dusty paving stones, the dream left his face.

He crouched bewilderedly, staring about the streets in confusion. ‘Mother?’ he called softly, ‘Mother?’ A note of panic entered his voice. ‘I was following you as fast as I could. Don’t go to the dancing without me! Mother?’ The boy glanced back at the Gate, and then at the unfamiliar grey city walls that framed it. He stumbled to his feet. The City must have been foreign to him indeed, for he immediately went to the Gate.

‘Did my mother come this way?’ he asked of the Keeper. But the Keeper turned his squat back on the boy, crouching down in the red of the Gate. ‘Mother!’ the boy called again, and began to venture back through the Gate. It stopped him. Pressed against the wall, Yoleth could see no barrier to his passing, but his fists drummed against something like rain pattering on a stretched hide. It did not yield, even when he scrabbled at it with bent fingers. The Keeper did not stir. Perplexed, the boy looked around.

His eyes snagged on the Windsinger. Yoleth did not move nor speak. His eyes beseeched, but hers were stony. A moment longer he gazed into her granite eyes. Fear disfigured his face. ‘Mother?’ he called again, and began to trot off down the street. His small eyes was lined with worry. His fine hair floated on the dawn air as his head swiveled from side to side, seeking a familiar form.

He trotted round a corner and was gone, except for his small cry floating on the morning like the call of a lost calf. The Windsinger stepped again from her place against the wall.

‘It works,’ she conceded calmly. ‘Our agreement can be fulfilled. But dawn comes soon to this city. Folk will be stirring. Where are doors that will cover this entrance from unfriendly eyes?’

The Keeper swung his head slowly from side to side, marveling at her ignorance. ‘The Gate is here only for those who know where to seek it, and come to seek it. It will be here when you need it. And when your need is over, the Gate will close of its own accord.’

‘I see.’ Yoleth digested this information. ‘And what of that child?’

‘He was necessary. If one comes in, one must be cast out to keep the balance. Only thus can I hold the door. He is not a threat to you. He will tell no one. Your white sun is deadly to him. He will not last the day, and any who hear his raving will put it down to the disease that ravages him. The Limbreth is wary. He would not make an agreement with you if he could not keep it.’

Yoleth drew closer, eyes hungry. She lowered her voice. ‘And he agreed that if I sent him Ki, there would be a gift for me.’

The Keeper was bored. ‘If the Limbreth said, then he will do. If you can keep your side of the bargain. You have still to bring her to the Gate.’

‘I see,’ Yoleth repeated slowly.

‘Mother!’ The small cry floated distantly on the still morning air. A speculative look sprang into Yoleth’s eyes. She was suddenly in a hurry. ‘It is agreed, then. You know who you are to watch for. Admit no other. Give your master my courtesies.’

Yoleth stepped away from the Gate and began to hasten, in a dignified manner, up the dusty street. She glanced back once at the Gate. It was not there. The stony-faced goddesses and heroes gazed at her blankly, denying any knowledge. She stepped back again, scanning the wall, until suddenly the Gate winked back into view. She blinked at it as it teased her eyes. Its width appeared to be perpendicular to the wall. But when she stepped nearer, it opened right before her. The Keeper stared at her in bored competence. Yoleth nodded once and turned away again. Her lips pulled into a tight line. When she had been a Human, it had been a smile. It still expressed her satisfaction with her night’s work, which perhaps she could make tidier still. She detested loose ends.

She hesitated at the first cross street, but the child’s miserable call wailed out again. She hastened toward it. The light of dawn was tingeing the sky; too soon folk would be up and about. She wanted her task completed and herself far away before that time. Let no one even wonder about a Windsinger hurrying down a dawn street in Jojorum.

At the next turning she caught sight of him. His pace had slowed to a walk. At every step the boy glanced about fearfully, but most often he turned his eyes up to the sky that was fading into blue. A rosy blush was rising on his golden skin. He rubbed at his bare arms as if they stung. ‘Mother!’ he cried again.

‘Boy!’

He turned to the Windsinger’s call, his eyes going wider in fear.

‘No, boy, don’t be afraid. I’ve come to find you. You’re to come with me.’

‘No. I want to go to my mother. I was following her, and then suddenly she was gone. I must catch up with her. I don’t like to be in this place alone.’

‘What’s your name?’ The Windsinger’s tone demanded an answer.

‘Chess.’

‘Exactly. Chess. I knew it was you. Your mother has sent me to find you, and take you to a safe place. She wants you to wait there for her, and do as I say, and she will come for you as soon as she can. Come along now.’

‘Why doesn’t she come now?’

Yoleth shrugged eloquently and took a chance. ‘I don’t know. She did not tell me. Does she not sometimes tell you to do things without saying why?’

Chess nodded slowly. He rubbed again at his arms, and then hugged them to his sides. He glanced worriedly from Yoleth’s face to the blue sky above her.

‘Then come with me. I have no doubt that when she comes for you, she will explain everything. But for now, she wants you to do as I tell you.’

Giving him no time to consider her words, she rushed him down the street, striding so swiftly that he trotted at her heels. The innmaster would want a few more coins for this. Well, no matter. He was already too well bribed to say no. It made all her arrangements more certain. They came swiftly to where a signboard depicted a white duck in a blue pond. The boy’s skin glowed rosily, and he cried aloud when Yoleth gripped his shoulder. She ignored it.

‘Take this,’ she instructed, pressing a tiny blue stone into the boy’s hand. ‘Give it to the man they call innmaster. Tell him you are come to help at the inn. You are to work nights at tables, and to sleep in the cellar by day. You are part of the bridegroom’s jest. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Repeat it, then.’

‘I give this thing to the innmaster and say I am come to help him, and work on tables at night, and sleep in a cellar all day. I am part of the bridegroom’s jest. But why are you leaving me? When will my mother come?’

Yoleth stifled her impatience. ‘She will come when she can. And I must leave because there is a place I have to be soon, if I am not already late. The innmaster will take care of you. Do all he tells you, and your mother will be very pleased with you when she comes. You want her to be pleased, don’t you?’

Chess nodded, but his small mouth was ajar with uncertainty.

‘Good.’ Yoleth pushed him, not ungently, through the doorslats of the inn. With a glance up and down the street, she hurried on her way. Her lips were once more stretched tight on her face.

‘I am growing impatient.’ Rebeke spoke coldly. ‘Did not Yoleth and the others know the hour set for this meeting?’ Rebeke stood motionless upon the black stone floor of the High Council chamber. She refused to pace, or even to shift her feet. If the High Council wished to be so discourteous as to deny her a chair, she would not let them enjoy her discomfort.

Five of the nine High Council Windmistresses returned her look. Their eyes were emotionless. They could have been statues gowned in deep blue and placed upon white chairs. The dull white High Council table was shaped in a half circle. Rebeke stood at the focus of all eyes, surrounded by stony gazes. She turned her head slowly, meeting each set of eyes in turn.

‘When will the others arrive?’ she demanded again.

Shiela shrugged. Her seat was to the right of the center chair, which was empty. ‘How can we say? You gave us little enough notice that you wished to speak to us. Your action is unusual enough, to say nothing of the hour you have chosen. Dawn hasn’t even warmed the fields. Besides, the High Council is accustomed to summoning the Windsingers they wish to address. Not the other way round. Lately, any summons we have sent to you has been ignored. Will you pretend surprise that others return your rudeness?’ Shiela sniffed delicately through her narrow nose.

Rebeke did not flinch. She met Shiela’s words silently, staring her down. The faces of the Windmistresses were impassive, but Rebeke could feel their uneasiness like a small cold wind. They did not like to look at her. She was more Windsinger than any of them. She had left her Human form behind like cast-off clothes. The shape of the ancient race was nearly fulfilled in her, and their legendary powers as well. She possessed already what they still strove after. But it gave her no beauty in their eyes.

Her blue cowl was tall above her brow. The blue and white of her eyes had gone flat. A swelling in the center of her face was a memorial to a once patrician nose. Her mouth was lipless, the corners nearly reaching the hinges of her jaws. The lissome movements of her arms within her loose sleeves suggested that the structure of her elbows and wrists had changed. The High Council could have forgiven the changes in her physiognomy. But they could not forgive the power that thrummed through her voice when she uttered the slightest word. Rebeke made certain they did not forget it.

She let the silence vibrate. ‘Yoleth,’ she said at last, ‘would certainly take pleasure in refusing to meet with me. But Cerie and Kadra and Dorin; were they even informed of my request?’

Shiela stiffened. ‘It is not the place of a Windmistress to question the High Council. Nor do we have to account to you for our whereabouts. You wished to speak to us. We have a quorum. Speak.’

‘I shall, but not because you command it. I will speak because I have no time for your petty intrigues. I have other things to attend to. Yet well I know that if I do not speak now, you will later plead ignorance, and make me out to be the unreasonable one. So I will speak swiftly now, and you will listen. Listen and remember.’

Rebeke stared slowly around at the semicircle of hostile faces. ‘At least I need not wonder if I have your attention,’ she said mirthlessly. She lifted her right hand abruptly and took a perverse pleasure in the flinching of the two Council members nearest her. ‘The wind has brought me rumors. Do not think I jest or exaggerate when I say the breezes bring me news …’

‘Superior abilities are never an excuse for the misuse of power!’ Shiela cut in angrily.

‘Silence!’ Rebeke’s voice was gentle, but its power rocked the room. Shiela went white as if she lacked air. ‘Ignorance is never an excuse for rudeness. As I was saying, the wind has brought me rumors. There is the Romni teamster, called Ki. You are all aware that she lives and travels under my shadow. Not my protection, nor my indulgence. My shadow. She is mine to rebuke, or mine to ignore. You have been warned to leave her alone. But the wind rumors say that you plan to do her evil. Will any of you deny this?’

Shiela took in air, but could not speak. A slender Windmistress, one of the young ones at the far edge of the table, shifted uneasily. Rebeke put her gaze upon her. Lilae was the newest of the Council members, with the face of a young Human maiden, lightly scaled. Her lips were still full and rosy with the blush of Humanity. ‘I will speak for us,’ she ventured timidly. ‘Unless there is another who feels she can speak better.’ She glanced about the table, but no other Windmistress moved or spoke. Shiela stared at the white table surface.

‘Please speak then,’ Rebeke invited her courteously. Her tone was markedly more tolerant as she looked upon the young Windsinger. Lilae drew in a deep breath; her eyes darted to Shiela, and then back to Rebeke.

‘The matter of Ki the Romni has been brought before us. Shiela spoke of it at the last calling of the Council. We are aware that Ki was your’ – Lilae fumbled, seeking a word for what she wished to express – ‘servant, in the recovery of the sole Windsinger Relic. We suppose you feel some debt of gratitude to her for aiding you to recover so important a treasure.’ Lilae was becoming more certain of herself with every word. ‘But perhaps you have not considered the other side of the coin. With the wizard Dresh she was able to force her way into our halls. She was a party to the slaying of Grielea, a Windsinger much honored among us, if not beloved to you.’ Rebeke’s smooth brows knit, and Lilae’s voice shook slightly as she hastily continued. ‘And it is said that she helped you to regain the relic, not to please us, but to spite the villagers that would not pay what they owed her. Or would not pay her friend. The reports aren’t clear.’